


people fall in love in mysterious ways

by rocketshiptospace



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-03
Updated: 2014-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-11 16:03:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2074380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rocketshiptospace/pseuds/rocketshiptospace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Ashton gets his first soulmate tattoo he’s fifteen years old and he wakes up in a cold sweat with a burning wrist and he wants to start screaming and crying because fuck it hurts. The pain has disappeared as quick as it appeared though and he’s left tracing his thumb over the small music note, placed on his right wrist, knowing this little piece of black ink is going to lead him to the one he’s meant to be with.</p><p>or, ashton lives in a world where a tattoo leads you to your soulmate but sometimes things sound easier than they are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	people fall in love in mysterious ways

**Author's Note:**

> this is like my third soulmate fic for lashton jesus christ somebody stop me

When Ashton gets his first soulmate tattoo he’s fifteen years old and he wakes up in a cold sweat with a burning wrist and he wants to start screaming and crying because _fuck_ it hurts. The pain has disappeared as quick as it appeared though and he’s left tracing his thumb over the small music note, placed on his right wrist, knowing this little piece of black ink is going to lead him to the one he’s meant to be with.

It’s rare, already receiving your tattoo so young, most won’t until their older, some don’t appear until the person is past their fifties, but there Ashton is, with the small black music note on his wrist, proudly showing his friends and family.

Ashton loves the idea of soulmates, loves the fact that these tattoos are a way to found your one and only, a way to find the one person who will complete you.

His friends are wary about it, though. They live in a time and age where it’s kind of hard to find your soulmate, because there are so many people, so many tattoos, so his friends think it’s impossible. Ashton frowns at that, because it’s your _soulmate_. You’re meant to be with this person, so you’ll meet them when you need to meet them.

He and his friends are at the age where you kick at everything, though. An age where society is always wrong and always trying to drag you down and adults are just there to make your life more miserable and only your opinions matter, and sometimes the opinions of your friends.

Ashton tries to convince them, tells them it’s a great thing, this tattoo, but they won’t listen to him and eventually he gives up.

He lies awake at night and stares at the music note and wonders what’s going to happen, when he’s going to meet them, how he’s going to meet them. Some soulmate tattoos tell something about the way you’ll meet, some tell something about the personality of your soulmate, so Ashton’s glad his is a music note.

He loves music, after all.

\--

When he’s seventeen years old most of his friends start receiving their tattoo’s and they’re all sort of things, from bright colored birds to small, little numbers, some are placed in full sight, on arms or legs or even on their face, but some are more hidden away, on the inside of their thighs, tucked away behind their ear, or on hipbones, hidden out of sight by pants.

His friends, who were so skeptic at first, now start frantically asking every hot girl they meet what her tattoo is, if maybe she’s the one. Ashton rolls his eyes at them, already far over the excitement of the soulmate tattoo.

He perks his ears though, whenever someone tells them about their tattoo, just in the small hope someone says ‘a tiny music note’. It never happens.

\--

When he turns nineteen, he think he’s found her.

It’s just, he’s standing in the supermarket and there’s two girls talking about their tattoo’s one aisle over and one of them mentions how she still hasn’t met ‘her dream guy with the music note tattoo’ and Ashton basically trips over himself on his way around the aisle.

When he’s face to face with her he smile and she send him a confused look and as he looks her up and down he thinks ‘yeah, you’re pretty’ but that’s it. He doesn’t have that weird feeling of coming home, like some people describe it, he doesn’t feel changed, he just feels like normal Ashton Irwin, staring at a normal girl in a normal supermarket.

She’s not it. He knows it. He feels it.

“Can I help you?” She asks him when he’s still standing there, sort of staring at her and Ashton immediately shakes his head.

“No, I just, peanut butter.” He quickly says, gesturing towards the shelf she’s standing in front of.

She nods in understandingly and steps aside, continuing the conversation with her friend as Ashton grabs a jar of peanut butter.

He heads back to his shopping cart staring at the jar in his hands with the great urge to throw it against a wall.

He doesn’t even like peanut butter.

\--

When he turns twenty-one, he has kind of given up.

It’s just, it’s been six years and nothing has happened and most of his skeptic friends have found their soulmates already and he’s getting wedding invite after wedding invite and it’s just.

It hurts, that’s all.

So Ashton decides to ignore it, pretend the little music note on his wrist doesn’t exist, covers it up with multiple colorful bracelets, and starts working on getting his life together.

He gets a job at a local music store, because no matter what happens he still love music so it’s basically the perfect job for him.

He moves into a shoebox of apartment, nothing but a small kitchen, bedroom, living room and bedroom, but he decorates it the way he wants it and it’s the first thing that’s really _his,_ so he loves it no matter what.

He goes to the weddings, every single one and when he’s asked about his soulmate, he just smiles and says they couldn’t make it, that they were busy, but that they send their regards.

He hates lying but it’s easier than having to deal with the pitying looks they send him when he tells them he hasn’t found them yet.

It’s fine, he’s fine, it’s all good.

\--

When he turns twenty-three, he starts wondering if maybe something happened to his soulmate. Maybe they died, maybe they don’t even live in Australia, maybe something terrible happened to them.

It worries him. He’s actually worrying about someone he’s never met before. The only thing he has in common with this stranger is the small black splotch of ink on his wrist and there he is, wondering if maybe the person with the matching tattoo is stuck on a deserted island.

The worry is s a sort prominent nagging in the back of his brain, like a little voice that keeps chanting ‘what if, what if, what if’ and it’s driving him absolutely insane.

He keeps going though, because that’s the only way he knows how to deal.

\--

When he turns twenty-five he has stopped worrying and has started moving on. By now he has excepted that he might never find his soulmate, because the limit of meeting your soulmate is five years after the tattoo shows up and it’s been ten now and he decides it’s time to move on.

He meets a pretty girl when he’s out for a drink with his friends and she turns out not having a soulmate either, hasn’t gotten a tattoo in the first place (or maybe not yet, but Ashton ignores that thought) and she’s nice and cute and she smells like lavender and Ashton takes her home that night and when he wakes up she’s making pancakes in his tiny kitchen and he thinks ‘yeah, maybe I can get used to this’.

They start dating and they reach a point where she’s basically living with him anyway so she moves in and they share soft smiles in the morning and cuddle each other at night and it feels good, yeah, but it’s like the girl in the supermarket, years earlier.

There isn’t a spark, there isn’t a feeling of coming home, nothing.

It’s something though, and that’s what Ashton holds on to.

\--

When he’s twenty-seven he asks her to marry him. It’s more out of practicality than anything because, well, she’s expecting a baby and it’ll be easier if they’re legally married, so that’s what they do, but Ashton doesn’t feel bad about it.

He’s building a future with this girl, she and the baby are his new happily ever after, rather than the slightly faded music note on his wrist.

He still covers it up with bracelets, but it’s more out of habit now than anything.

\--

When he’s twenty-nine he has a little girl to take care of and a house with a lawn and a beautiful wife that organizes parties in the weekends, barbeques with all their friends there, and they’ll sit in the garden and drink wine and talk about politics and it’s all very normal.

Ashton still works at the music store though. He knows he should maybe move on to something better, something that pays a bit better, but his wife doesn’t mind, earns enough for the both of them, and he just can’t let it go.

Something’s telling him he needs to stay there so he does.

\--

When’s he’s thirty-one,  life’s getting boring.

It’s the same thing every day, wake up, bring his daughter to school, go to work, pick up his daughter from school, go home, wait until his wife has cooked diner, eat dinner, read for a bit, go to bed and repeat it again the next morning.

It’s just, he doesn’t need great adventures or big life changing events, just something different every once in awhile would be nice. Some excitement.

But his wife likes this, likes the silent and the quiet and the rhythm in it all and for the first time in years it’s becoming apparent they’re not really meant for each other.

In the beginning it was fine, because they were both lost souls who just needed some loving, and then their beautiful daughter came along and they got married and there was the excitement of new and they were busy with raising their daughter, but now, now they’ve fallen into this nice pattern, Ashton’s getting bored.

He looks at his friends and he sees them looking at each other with love in their eyes and they never seem bored, but he also sees their matching tattoos and he knows it’s because they’re meant to be.

He and his wife aren’t.

He finds himself laying awake more and more, tracing the small black music note on his wrist with his thumb, wondering what went wrong.

\--

When he’s thirty-three, she leaves him.

He wakes up on what he thinks is a lazy Sunday to find her standing in the hallway, bags packed next to her, their daughter’s hand in hers.

She doesn’t say anything when he asks her what’s wrong, what’s going on, just holds up her arm to show him the tattoo of a brightly colored flower, one he has never seen before, one he knows isn’t done by any tattoo artist.

She’s leaving him for a tattoo and he wants to scream that they don’t always work and that she might never meet the one and that she might end like him, but then he realizes the difference between them and he shuts up.

She has hope. He has lost his long ago.

\--

When he’s thirty-five, he has long moved out of his house with a lawn, back into a small shoebox apartment, back to where he was over ten years ago, back at the beginning.

He keeps himself occupied, tries to forget about the fact his wife and daughter left him, ignores the burning feeling in his heart that screams that no one’s ever going to love him, that he’s meant to be alone, that he’s not good enough to deserve someone’s love.

He still works at the music store and he watches the people as they file in, look at the albums, occasionally buy some and then leave and he realizes that no matter what happens, this place will always be  a home to him.

\--

When he’s thirty-seven, Ashton’s life gets meaning again.

It’s on a dreary Thursday afternoon, one of those days people mostly use the music store to escape from the rain rather than actually buy something, but Ashton’s ok with it because he can occasionally strike up a conversation with these people, complain about the weather, recommend them an album, things like that.

That’s how he starts talking to a tall, long legged blond guy, that looks to be around his age, maybe a few years younger. Ashton doesn’t know what draws him to him, all he knows is that the guy is looking at the vintage blink-182 albums and well, Ashton loves blink-182, so he walks over there.

“Can I help you?” He asks when he reaches the guy and he turns around to face Ashton and Ashton breath catches in his throat, a reaction he’s never had from just looking at a person.

It’s just, this guy has bright blue eyes that shake Ashton’s entire world, make him feel like he’s floating and falling at the same time, like they’re the only two people on the planet, like they’re all either of them is ever going to need.

“Hi,” the stranger breaths out, and he looks like Ashton feels. Breathless, in awe, confused.

“Hello,” Ashton says in response.

“Do I know you? It’s just, you look so familiar?” The guy says and Ashton shakes his head.

“No, I’m sure I’d remember eyes that pretty,” Ashton says, in a surge of confidence and the guy chuckles, a sound that makes Ashton feel all warm and tingly inside.

“I was just looking at some albums,” the guy says, referring to Ashton’s original question. He puts the album he’s currently holding back on the shelf and as he’s doing so his shirt slightly shifts on his arms which means his wrist is exposed and for the second time that day Ashton’s breath catches in his throat.

Mesmerized, Ashton reaches forward and grabs the guy’s hand, not really caring how weird the guy must think he is, and slowly reveals his wrist to him, pushing the sleeve up so he can look at it properly.

And there, on his wrist, is none other than the little music note Ashton has been looking at on his own wrist for years.

It’s weird, seeing it upside down like this and he slowly traces his finger over it, so captivated by the fact that he’s finally seeing his soulmate’s tattoo from up close that he’s totally forgetting the person attached to it.

“Uh,” the guy says and Ashton’s eyes snap up, and he feels the same thing he felt earlier, except now he recognizes it as the love it is.

He doesn’t say a word, just slips the bracelets form his own wrist and holds it up in front of the guy’s face.

His eyes widen as he shifts his eyes from Ashton to his wrist and then he’s grabbing Ashton’s wrist and doing the same Ashton did, tracing over it slowly before he looks up.

“It’s you,” he whispers and all Ashton can do is nod.

They stare at each other for awhile, lost in the feeling of relief and happiness that’s washing through the both of them.

“Luke,” the guy suddenly says and Ashton sends him a confused look. “My name’s Luke.”

Ashton smiles and extends a hand, “Ashton, nice to meet you.”

Luke ignores the hand though, and instead pulls Ashton in for a hug. He’s slightly taller than Ashton so Ashton’s face gets smushed against Luke’s chest and Luke’s maybe holding on a bit too tightly, but Ashton finally understands what people mean when they say meeting your soulmate is like coming home.

\--

(Later, him and Luke will go for coffee, because he’s thirty-nine years old and he’s been through a lot and he knows this soulmate thing is a true thing but he wants to do this properly, he wants to do this right, so he takes Luke on a date.

They’ll sit across from each other and smile at each other from over their coffees and tell each other about their life before they met each other and Ashton will tell Luke about his ex-wife and the daughter he’s not allowed to see anymore and Luke will look at him with sad eyes and tell him about the thousands of people he slept with just to feel some self worth, to feel like at least someone loved him and Ashton realizes that they’ve both been broken beyond repair.

But they have each other now and neither is planning on letting go soon, not if their intertwined hands on the table are anything to go by.

Ashton looks at his wrist, the one with the music note on it and realizes that somewhere between meeting Luke and going on a date with Luke he has lost the bracelets.

He doesn’t care, though. He wants everyone to see the little music note on his wrist.

He wants everyone to know that maybe life will throw shit at you, make it look like you’re not going to find happiness, but in the end, it will always reward you in the best way possible.)

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me on tumblr [here](http://skatertotluke.tumblr.com) i promise i dont bite


End file.
